User:Palapa/sandbox

Biography
Kurdi is believed to have been born in Kobanî, Syria. After moving between various towns to escape ISIL, his family settled in Turkey for three years. The family returned to Kobanî at the beginning of 2015, but returned to Turkey in June 2015 when ISIL re-took Kobanî. After two failed attempts to take the family to the Greek island of Kos, Kurdi's father arranged a third attempt because he needed new teeth which were too expensive for him in Turkey; he therefore made the decision to move to Europe, which ended in tragedy.

His family were attempting to join their relatives in Vancouver, Canada. His aunt, Tima Kurdi, had filed a refugee sponsorship in Canada for the benefit of her brother Mohammad, the boy's uncle. The application for the uncle was rejected by the Department of Citizenship and Immigration Canada, in part because they were denied an exit visa by Turkish authorities, so she never bothered to apply for Alan's father. The problem of exit visa seems to stem from the fact that Turkey is exempt from certain provisions of the 1951 Refugee Convention. The UNHCR does not register asylum seekers in Turkey. Turkey does not issue exit visas to refugees who do not possess referrals from the UNHCR. In Turkey, there are no "refugee camps". There are Turkish "temporary protection shelters". The Kurdi family had no Syrian passports, valid Turkish visas, or UNHCR refugee documents, and therefore did not qualify for exit visas. Sneaking out of Turkey was their only option to avoid arrest and detention by Turkish authorities.

NDP MP Fin Donnelly told the media that he had hand-delivered their file to Citizenship and Immigration Minister Chris Alexander earlier this year, but the application was rejected in June 2015. The Kurdi family tried to obtain entry to Canada under a private sponsorship program whereby groups of five people may also sponsor an individual or family. They are required to demonstrate that they can provide roughly 27,000 Canadian dollars to support a family of four refugees. According to Alexandra Kotyk, project manager of Lifeline Syria, a refugee settlement group in Toronto, the program requires that people seeking to come to Canada from Turkey first be declared refugees by the Turkish government. She said that was often a difficult or impossible condition to fulfil.

In the early morning hours of Wednesday 2 September 2015, Kurdi and his family were in a smaller size plastic or rubber inflatable boat, which capsized about five minutes after taking off from a beach resort at Bodrum in Turkey. A total of 16 people were in the boat, which is designed for a maximum of 8 people. They were all trying to reach the Greek island of Kos, a roughly 30 minute (or 2.5 miles) ride by boat from Bodrum. Although many use life jacket, none of the people in this boat had them.

Description of the published photographs of Kurdi's corpse
Brendan O'Neill, reporter for The Spectator, a conservative British magazine, wrote that [such] "photos are often cynically cropped to exclude adults, in order to accentuate the vulnerability of the kid. Rather than focus on drowned adults, The Guardian and The Independent have instead focussed only on Aylan’s tiny, pathetic body".

At least one of the published photographs shows no other people.

Reactions to the photos
The photograph of Kurdi's lifeless body, which had washed ashore, caused grave international concern. French President François Hollande phoned Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and some European leaders after the images of Kurdi emerged in the world media. He said that the picture must be a reminder of the world's responsibility regarding refugees. British Prime minister David Cameron said he felt deeply moved by images of Kurdi. Irish Prime Minister Enda Kenny commented on the photographs of Kurdi and described the refugee crisis as a "human catastrophe" and found his pictures "absolutely shocking".

The picture has been credited with causing a surge in donations to charities helping migrants and refugees, with one charity, the Migrant Offshore Aid Station, recording a 15-fold increase in donations within 24 hours of its publication. British Prime Minister David Cameron said that he was 'deeply moved' by the picture, and indicated that the British government would accept a greater number of refugees from Syria.

Criticism of the general public's responses to the picture
Brendan O'Neill wrote in The Spectator on 3 September 2015 that: "The global spreading of this snapshot — which appears on the front page of the Independent today and inside the Guardian, and is even callously being turned into a meme by sections of the weeping Twitterati — is justified as a way of raising awareness about the migrant crisis. Please. It’s more like a snuff photo for progressives, dead-child porn, designed not to start a serious debate about migration in the 21st century but to elicit a self-satisfied feeling of sadness among Western observers."

Canadian minister suspending election campaign
The death of Kurdi and reports that his family had been trying to ultimately reach Canada had an immediate impact on domestic Canadian politics. Prime Minister Stephen Harper cancelled a photo opportunity and addressed the issue in a campaign event. "Yesterday, Lauren and I saw on the Internet, the picture of this young boy, Alan, dead on the beach. Look, I think, our reaction to that, you know the first thing that crossed our mind was remembering our son Ben at that age, running around like that" Harper said. Minister of National Defence and Multiculturalism Jason Kenney cancelled an important announcement on Conservative efforts to protect the integrity of Canada’s immigration system and the security of Canada. Canadian Citizenship and Immigration Minister Chris Alexander announced he would be temporarily suspending his campaigning in the the 2015 Canadian federal election to return to Ottawa to resume his ministerial duties and investigate the case of Aylan Kurdi, whose family's application for refugee status in Canada had been rejected by his ministry.

Liberal leader Justin Trudeau said that "you don't get to suddenly discover compassion in the middle of an election campaign" and that ""All different stripes of governments in Canada have stepped up in times of crisis to accept people fleeing for their lives," he said. "Canadians get it. This is about doing the right thing, about living up to the values that we cherish as a country." Trudeau also reiterated the Liberal promise made several months before the election to bring in 25, 000 Syrian refugees.

NDP leader Tom Mulcair said that "Chris Alexander has a lot to answer for, but that’s not where we are right now. We’re worried about how we got here, how the collective international response has been so defective, how Canada has failed so completely" NDP MP Fin Donnelly has been accused of using the tragic event as a means to garner votes. On September 5th, the Toronto Sun newspaper published an article titled "NDP's Fin Donnelly needs to own up to his mistake".

Green Party leader Elizabeth May criticized Stephen Harper's response to the crisis, noting the difficulty to sponsor a refugee in Canada. On the Green Party website, May accused the government of lacking credibility on the issue, "having failed to honour previous [refugee] announcements."

Reporting controversy
Initially reports indicated that Canadian immigration authorities denied the family's application. However, later reports revealed that the application was made only for Alan's uncle and rejected because it was not complete.